So, Lydia, I hear you say, what do I need to eat to finally, really, truly lose weight for good and keep it off? What is the secret?
That's the question I get all the time - what do I need to eat get to get to goal weight? And usually, people expect it to be new and, well, different. I've been there. I've eaten all. the. weird. things. I've grapefruit-ed and keto-ed and no-fatted and all-fatted. And I thought they were the answer for the first few days or weeks until I never wanted to see a grapefruit again. But now after several years of testing, at last, I have the answer. And the surprizing answer is - It's not a diet. I can tell you in my experience as a marketer, all diets are things that are INVENTED. Sure, some parts of them are based on research but they are all recent developments influenced by marketing culture. But what works long term is ... [drumroll] what has been derived from hundreds of years of human experience. And that is meals. Yup, meals, planned ahead, with some balance of foods, and some level of enjoyment, not bran flakes but not a sensory extravaganza. You could add some other commonsense things that normal eaters do for extra credit. The book The Rules of “Normal” Eating which explores what normal eaters do. It lays out the four basic rules that "normal" eaters follow instinctively — eating when they're hungry, choosing foods that satisfy them, eating with awareness and enjoyment, and stopping when they're full or satisfied. This doesn't mean you give up elements of diets that have really worked for you. You can still err on the side of keto, or have a plant-based diet, but to do it long term requires having an approach that works for you that you stick to and refine over time. It cannot feel extreme. So what is your eating approach going to be? Challenge: Test out a basic plan for the next 30 days. Invent it yourself, using meals. But, Lydia, what is a meal?
Have a great week, Lydia Remember, if you need help I offer a free session, so jump on the phone with me. It ’s zero obligation just so you can get to experience the power of coaching first hand. I promise you will get value. The truth is all diets would work - if we could only stick to them.
So, given this, the problem is always our mindset, not the diet. So why do we keep trying different diets when that's not the answer? There's been times when we have had no problem sticking to an eating plan and changing habits but then suddenly we. can't. even. So, we blame the diet and move on to try to find a better one. But after a million diets that didn't work, it might be useful to look at specifically what happened not with the diet but with our thinking. One day the diet was working and the next day we couldn't stick to it. We didn't change. The food didn't change. What changed was that on the day we quit we had a different thought. And not something obvious like "oh hey let's give up on healthy eating for the foreseeable future"- something more subtle and sneaky. Something harmless sounding like 'I deserve a treat, I've been so good'. Sounds reasonable. And then once we've bought that thought it becomes easier to buy another thought.. One of the most sneaky ones is "I just love food". I've had this one and also coached other people. It's culturally accepted as it makes overeating sophisticated and about 'passion' - suddenly it's fiiine to overeat. It's your passion, right? No one should get in the way of your passion! But it's easy to call BS on this one. WhenI lived in France where they food passionates, I've never seen people be more sparing and moderate. Portion sizes are literally out of the '50s with a serving being a serving spoon size. And if you are indulging with a special meal there's no more quantity, just a slight upgrade in the quality and the amount of time to prepare the dish. The point is not to feel bad about the amount of food we are eating - no one actually wants to eat a lot of food. When we become aware we can see it's actually just unpleasant. The point is to show how we have been conditioned to think around food that is allowing us to overeat consistently. Once we change the thinking we will change the feelings and actions that follow, and ultimately, our results. This week take time to notice some of your sneaky food beliefs that are making overeating so appealing to you and keeping you from having the relationship to food you really want. For me, one of the most powerful beliefs I have created is "I'm just not that interested in food." Trust me, that's a long way from where I was a few years ago. But it's a thought that's now let me lose 30kg and keep it off while sticking to a healthy eating plan. It can work for you if you deal with the thinking rather than the diets. Remember, if you want some accountability and help to apply these strategies and put the overeating struggle behind you I offer a free 45 min consult - zero obligation! Have a great week, Lydia Want to know what the single most powerful tool I know to stop binge eating? It's the skill of 'allowing' an urge to over eat without either resisting it or giving it to it.
This is possible even if you currently you feel like you’re completely out of control and eating against your own will. By slow things down and becoming aware of our thoughts and feelings we can begin the process of change. Allowing is completely different to resisting an urge or waiting for it to pass. And by doing this we can...
1) experience the urge fully without judgement by simply naming sensations as they arise in the body 2) cultivating a mindset of gentle curiosity - what does an urge really feel like? When I first did this I just noticed and wrote down the sensations and the thoughts that came with it as well as the actual level of physical hunger I was experiencing, which often was surprisingly low. For most people the urge to binge doesn’t come from hunger but more from a sense of craving. You might notice that your stomach actually feels relatively full or only slightly hungry, so you can begin to see the binge as not hunger but a conditioned response to stress or a specific situation. The good news is each time you allow an urge to binge and don’t indulge it, it weakens the urge. And if you allow urge to be there without rewarding it with food or distracting yourself from the urge, the urge will die off. This is the promised land of any behaviour change. Suddenly the urge just isn't there anymore. The theory behind this is called operant conditioning, the theory Pavlov arrived at after experiments training dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell by associating the bell with food rewards. If they got food every time it sounded they would drool just at the sound of the bell. But more importantly, they stopped salivating over time when the bell was rung and no food was offered. We can do the same and de-condition ourselves from binge and overeating just by staying present to the urge to eat (aka the sound of the bell) without rewarding it by eating. Eventually the urge dies off. It's worth noticing that the urge itself is powerless. It’s like an alarm but it doesn’t have the ability to make you do anything. You actually have to act on the urge by deciding to eat. In fact, it’s less effort not to eat. One task I give clients is to try to have 100 allowed urges in order to challenge them to break the habit of bingeing for good. Even if you aren’t willing to try allowing an urge you can start with cultivating awareness when you do binge and that can be enough to start the process of long-term change. And it’s a skill we can develop even over the holiday season. Remember if you want help with bingeing I offer a free one on one consult with, seriously, no pressure. I have got past this, and I know you can too. Have a great week, Lydia x How do you approach making changes to overeating?
Find yourself wanting to make big changes right now because you feel like you’ve put your life on hold for emotional overeating long enough? I hear you. I was the same. Like most of my most clients, I just wanted the struggle with bingeing and weight to be over. Now. Or yesterday. Either we want to lose 30 lbs by Christmas or we don’t want to even start. That’s the crazy diet mentality at work. We suddenly take on a complete overhaul of the way we eat and one small set back we give up altogether. But if there’s any ‘secret’ to stopping binge and emotional overeating it’s being willing to make small changes that are long term. Most of us have been fighting so long we have battle fatigue and have given up altogether. But you can win the battle and get your life back if you change strategies to picking a small tactical skirmish you can win. This is the exact opposite of a diet. Instead of trying to change everything now, pick one small change you can stick to forever and try adopting as ‘just something you do’. I can trace the exact moment I finally started to have success with overcoming binge eating. I stopped years of bingeing and emotional overeating when I made the relatively small decision that I would never eat to being completely overfull again. This was actually pretty easy to stick to because it was such a small commitment, it seemed do-able. Once I started slowing down the binges I could increase my awareness. When I did this I could see that actually, eating to overfull isn’t comfortable. Then I thought if I can change that I could make another small commitment which was to eat regular meals of real food instead of just grabbing snacks throughout my busy day. So from that first tiny habit, I ended years of feeling powerless to stop overeating. Even though this small change seems too small to make a difference sticking to it was enough to prove to myself that I could change long-term after breaking so many diets. From this, I eventually added the ability to allow urges to binge without responding to them. This was a game-changer. (I will tell you more about this next week.) I find that if people get confidence with one small habit they have confidence that they can break the urge to binge or overeat when it arises. The good news is, this is something you can start now even with the holidays coming up. It doesn’t require a New Year’s Resolution and it’s something that you can keep for good when all of the dieters have quit in January. I invite you to try making one tiny small change today. Here are some ideas.
One of the biggest challenges binge and over eaters face is believing they can change with so many years of failed diets to prove them wrong. If there’s one thing I know for sure, is that if I can do it after more than 20 years of binge and overeating … you can too. It’s never too late to start. Pick one small change you can make today. Have a great week, Lydia Remember, if you need help applying these strategies I'm always here to help. I offer a 20-minute online mini-session where I am happy to coach you through an issue for free. It ’s zero obligation just so you can get to experience the power of coaching first hand. Zero sales pressure and as always I promise you will get value. |
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